HOW MINDFULNESS AND DRAWING HELP US TO CONNECT WITH ART INTRODUCTION  Today I’m so happy to be talking to Karly Allen about her work. We’re talking about how mindfulness can help us to connect with and engage with art, how we can bring mindfulness practices to the experience of drawing. Karly Allen is a UK-based gallery educator, drawing tutor and mindfulness teacher. She has worked for the National Gallery, London, over the past 20 years and has taught widely for UK art collections including the National Portrait Gallery, Wallace Collection and

SLOW LOOKING AND EMPATHY WITH KENIA SANTOS INTRODUCTION  Today I’m delighted to be talking to Kenia Santos - an educator based in Brazil with specialisations and interests in art history, philosophical inquiry, social and emotional learning, thinking routines and slow looking. We discuss how she uses thinking routines in her work to encourage and develop slow looking, how she keeps her teenage students engaged for 3 hours (!) in her art classes and how we can develop empathy through slow looking. Kenia is a passionate educator, slow looking enthusiast and a self-described art history nerd; a cat lover,

3 THINKING ROUTINES FOR SLOW LOOKING AND DRAWING INTRODUCTION This week’s episode is inspired by recent classes in the Visible Thinking Membership where we've been exploring the concept of using drawing and sketching for slow looking and observation. We’re also been talking a lot about how people feel about drawing, sketching, doodling and scribbling as well. Now when you introduce any activity into a guided tour, museum programme or class that involves drawing you almost certainly get a few people in the audience who have objections - normally along the lines of ‘I can’t draw’. It quite often

13 TIPS FOR GETTING STARTED WITH THINKING ROUTINES INTRODUCTION  In the past week I’ve just started teaching my Visible Thinking in the Museum Online course (VTMO) to a group of international educators excited to start confidently leading discussions around art and objects. There’s always a buzz when we get going and an enthusiasm to learn as much as you can as quickly as possible. But I always try to slow down participants, so that they can take it one step at a time and build up their practice (and confidence) slowly. So this week’s episode is for all

HOW TO USE YOUR VOICE AS A TOOL TO ENGAGE YOUR AUDIENCE INTRODUCTION  Today I’m really excited to be introducing our first guest chat on the podcast. Today I’m talking to voice actor Samantha Boffin - we are exploring tools and techniques that will help you develop a more reliable and consistent voice. Samantha Boffin is a voice actor working with clients on voice technique, voiceover and communication. I invited Samantha to lead a masterclass on voice in the Visible Thinking membership and it was so well received that I invited her back on to the podcast to

THE 6 CORE ELEMENTS OF MY VTMO COURSE (& WHY THEY'RE IMPORTANT) INTRODUCTION  Today I’m talking about the 6 core elements in my popular Visible Thinking in the Museum Online (VTMO) course - elements that you should also have in your toolbox and repertoire as key factors for connecting with your audience and engaging them with art and objects. I'm also talking about the history behind the course and how it came about - at the start of the pandemic in 2020! THE STORY BEHIND VTMO In March 2020, like many people I lost all my in-person

WHAT TO EXPECT FROM THE ART OF ENGAGEMENT CHALLENGE INTRODUCTION  Would you love to learn how to design and lead engaging discussions around art and objects in just 4 days? On Monday through to Thursday next week (13-19 September 2021), I’ll be sharing 4 principles that are key 🔑 for creating engagement and connection when you're designing and leading art discussions. ⁠ In this BONUS episode of The Art Engager podcast you’ll learn everything you need to know about what happens when you join the challenge, who it's for and how it will work. Join in the 4

CREATING A GREAT GROUP DYNAMIC IN THE 'NEW NOW' SUMMARY Welcome back to the Art Engager podcast! Today I’m talking about building rapport and creating a great group dynamic in the 'new now'. Creating a great group dynamic is even MORE important now after the last year or so. We will need to take extra care to create social comfort and psychological safety, we will also need to build trust and social interaction. In this episode I'm talking about : what group dynamics are the different types of groups you might come across the roles people play in

Writing through Art: 9 Ways Art can Make you a Better Writer Throughout the ages, looking at art has been a unique way of finding inspiration and creativity. If you go as far back as the Greeks, you can find examples of writing inspired by art, called ekphrasis, which means “a literary description of or commentary on a visual work of art” Art is a frequent source of inspiration for many writers and poets over the centuries. John Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn" is a famous example and William Blake said that poetry and art are 'ways to converse